Food Storage in Base & Uppers - No Pantry
This should be an easy, no brainer question, but for some reason, the answer is eluding me. Right now, we have a tall pantry where you open the doors and the slide-outs hold the food. I am designing (with your guidance) a kitchen in a condo, that in the most recent rendition, does not have room for a tall pantry. So the food will be held in upper and base cabinets. Most likely, the base cabinets will be 30" deep and the uppers will be 15" deep. The question is... how would you design the cabinets to hold the dry food? Would you rather have a drawer stack of three or four drawers? Would you rather have a single door to open for slide outs? How about two doors to open for slide outs?
Currently, I have 40" allocated in width for food storage. Here is the most recent layout:
So... I currently use a 36" drawer stack for pot/pans (lower two) and utensils (top drawer). I find that drawer to be quite large. I am having a hard time envisioning an even wider drawer filled with food.
If anyone has any suggestions, experiences, or photos to share, I sure would love to hear/see them!
Comments (13)
cotehele
13 years agoMost of my food storage is on the back side of the island, but not in drawers. They are shelves with doors. One cupboard is for canned goods. The other is for pastas, beans, rice etc. as well as the blender and pasta maker. Perhaps you could have an end cabinet, facing the aisle for pantry storage and make the drawers narrower.
Here is the long view. The can storage, 38 '' wide by 6'' deep, is behind the left double doors. The rice cabinet is 38'' x 12''.
still_lynnski
13 years agoRelated Discussions
ruh-roh.. i forgot about food storage
Comments (13)You'll figure it out! Before this house I'd never had a separate pantry, and in this one the pantry was too inconvenient to use for food. It's really no problem, since you said you have space. Easy part: Light things go high. Crackers, cereal (unless you want it at kid height) pasta etc. Heavy staples go either bottom shelf of upper or top of lower: flour, sugar. Cans and glass bottles are best low because they're easier to see and don't bonk you on the head. Bread should also go in the middle, if it's in the pantry, because that's the least amount of squeezing. Is there a spare cupboard near the table? If so, that's a great place for consume at table things like bread, cereal and cookies. If there's a shelf by the stove or instant hot, or whatever, for teas, instant cocoa, etc., commonly used spices (if you don't have a built-in for them), wine and oil to cook with, and things like that. In other words, spread some things out to point of use. You can't plan everything! And if you need to, you'll move a few things out of the kitchen. Things like the stockpot and roaster take up a lot of room, and most people only use them every now and then. It's okay. You'll figure it out....See MoreDrawers, food storage, and measuring what you don't have
Comments (17)We had an odd situation living in an uncompleted house for two years. Since we weren't *supposed* to be living here, it was like camping. Every six months we had to have an inspection, so every six months we had to remove any evidence of habitation so we wouldn't get busted. As a result, we only had the basics. After a while, you find out just how little you need for day-to-day living! As a result of this forced exercise, we've found that we could really thin out all of the excess stuff we've been holding on to, but never using. In our new kitchen, ten of the 32 drawers are still empty! We keep some cans in shallow drawers laying on their sides. We keep bulk purchases in the basement, and also keep a lot of stuff in our antique Hoosier cabinet in the adjacent DR. With only two older people, we don't need to store huge amounts of dried or canned goods. Running down to the basement can be a hassle, but it's also good exercise! We run up and down to take care of the cat's food, water, and litter anyway. When we get to the point that the stairs aren't safe for us due to age, we'll just store more upstairs. I'm going to build cabinets over our laundry, just a few steps away. Since we only use laundry detergent and dryer sheets, there will be tons of space there if we want to store dry goods or cans. I guess all of my rambling leads to the idea of thinking outside the box, or kitchen, in this case, Not everything has to be right at your fingertips....See Morepantry food storage containers
Comments (62)i have to agree that some of the personal attacks and screaming in some of these posts on this thread has been uncalled for. Opinions can be strong, and they can provoke some strong responses. But, personal attacks are unacceptable. Sometimes it is difficult to draw a straight line between a strongly worded opinion and personal attack when the opinion is seen as denunciation, but there should be some attempt to make that delineation. People who post here are inviting opinions and advice from strangers on the world wide web.. There will be misstatements and misinterpretations,differing versions of the truth, and, sometimes there will be too much said, too strongly. There will almost always be someone who feels that their toes have been stomped on, no matter what. That is unavoidable. But, there are no spitballs or flaming arrows allowed! Get a grip! All this was to be about was kitchen storage containers!! Glass, or plastic? By the way, I too have some of those old fashioned covered dishes such as pyrex. I have a darling nested set of very pretty colors and nice looking glass lids. I treasure them and really enjoy using them! They were given to me from the kitchen of an elderly lady who's family cared not for them. Enough said here about this--- moving on. I feel quite certain that someone is awaiting my opinion of how to place their sofa. I am sure I can muster an opinion for them and let them know exactly what I think they are doing all wrong. (insert muffled laughter here)...See MoreWhy not put pullout drawers in upper shelves of pantry?
Comments (22)I have a drawer pullout (behind doors) and a shelf over my fridge. This cabinet is 30" deep so stuff in the back would be inaccessible. I am short and have to pull out a stool anyway. This way I can get to the stuff in the back from the side. The shelf mounted very high above it? I think it has blueprints and a few unused barbecue accessories. This storage isn't for stuff I access regularly. But it holds all my canning supplies. Next to my fridge cabinet is another 30" deep cabinet 16" wide--a tall pullout pantry and a cabinet above. This cabinet too has a pullout drawer that we use for paper towels and garbage bags. I don't need a stool for this one because it's a little lower. I can grab a bag from the front without opening and I can pull it out to its full-extension glory if I need the paper towels in the rear. The shelf above that has rarely used appliances. Anyway I am in favor of pullouts on deeeeep uppers, at least for the bottom of them. Perhaps not for every-day stuff, because it's still way up there, but the space is easier to use with them....See Moremarcolo
13 years agoSeems like there's an infinite variety of storage systems these days that could work:
I think this is still just a prototype:
{{!gwi}}
And last, but not least, the terrifyingly feature-packed super cabinets:
Fori
13 years agoFori
13 years agoironcook
13 years agoaha, so you DO need to plan for storage! ;)
these dividers are nifty if you want to be super organized:
from dynamicspace.comhave you checked out the Blum website? there's a whole bunch of info on planning zones/storage.
also check out loves2cook4six's kitchen in the finished kitchens blog. she has great storage ideas.
http://finishedkitchens.blogspot.com/2008/12/loves2cook4sixs-kitchen.html
Here is a link that might be useful: Blum Dynamic Space: Sufficient Storage
laughablemoments
13 years agoedie_g
13 years agoaliris19
13 years agoironcook
13 years agocoffeebreak
13 years agoedie_g
13 years ago
coffeebreakOriginal Author